Tag: freedom

Not one tea party group has yet been contacted by the FBI, one month after the IRS scandal began.

11:31 pm

Stonewalling: Not one tea party group has yet been contacted by the FBI, one month after the IRS scandal began.

Worse, the head of the FBI can’t even name the FBI person in charge of the investigation.

Republican Rep. Jim Jordan lit into Mueller for his lack of knowledge during a House judiciary committee hearing. “This is the most important issue in front of the country in the last six weeks, and you don’t know who the lead investigator is?” Jordan asked, sounding shocked.

“At this juncture, no I do not,” Mueller responded.

“Do you know if you’ve talked to any of the victims?” Jordan went on. “Have you talked to any of the groups that were targeted by their government? Have you met with any of the tea party groups since May 14, 2013?”

“I don’t know what the status of the interviews are by the team that’s on it,” Mueller said.

Reached for comment Thursday afternoon, the FBI’s Washington, D.C. press office transferred TheDC to a long-ringing phone line and eventually hung up.

I have embedded the video of this hearing testimony below the fold. Watch and you will know that the claims of “outrage” by Obama and Holder are utter crap.
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An audit has revealed that in 2010 and 2011 more than 1,000 IRS employees misused government charge cards

4:01 pm

The law is such an inconvenient thing: An audit has revealed that in 2010 and 2011 more than 1,000 IRS employees misused government charge cards.

The key quote from the article is this conclusion from the audit:

The inspector general’s bottom line conclusion in this area was that the IRS is more tolerant of its own employees who misuse government charge cards than it is of American taxpayers who fail to pay their taxes in a timely manner.

“Of particular concern is the fact that the IRS ask taxpayers to voluntarily pay taxes owed in a timely manner and yet was more tolerant when its employees became delinquent and defaulted on outstanding payments, violated the terms of the Citibank contract, abused a Government-provided resource (travel funding), and compromised the integrity of the IRS.”

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Under Obamacare it looks like health insurance will be unaffordable for most low wage workers.

12:57 pm

Finding out what’s in it: Under Obamacare it looks like health insurance will be unaffordable for most low wage workers.

I guess that’s why Obama and the Democrats officially named Obamacare the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”. Like most badly written government laws, it is achieving exactly the opposite of its intentions.

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The Obama administration demands the right to snoop on American private communications, but it specifically forbids any spying in mosques.

10:53 am

The world upside down: The Obama administration demands the right to snoop on American private communications, but it specifically forbids any spying in mosques.

Which might explain why this administration completely failed to catch the Boston marathon bombers, despite plenty of evidence that they were a threat.

No matter. They’ve got us covered. If anyone decides to criticize Obama they will be right on the case!

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A researcher of fuel cells, manhandled and arrested because he used the wrong mailing labels in selling and shipping sodium to fund his research, was then targeted by the EPA because he wasn’t home to maintain his sodium supplies.

6:16 pm

We’re here to help you: A researcher of fuel cells, manhandled and arrested because he used the wrong mailing labels in selling and shipping sodium to fund his research, was then prosecuted by the EPA because he wasn’t home to maintain his sodium supplies.

On May 27, 2004, federal agents in two black SUVs, waving assault rifles, forced Krister’s car off the road. Manhandling him as if he were a terrorist, they arrested, interrogated, and jailed him. For what? Putting the wrong shipping label—with the correct instructions, mind you—on a box of raw sodium that he sold on eBay.

A jury saw that it was an honest mistake and found Krister “not guilty.” But while Krister was on trial, sodium from his experiments sat in steel drums at an industrial warehouse. The Environmental Protection Agency learned of the additional sodium, determined that Krister had “abandoned” it, and charged him with a federal crime.

Although Krister’s expert witness testified that the sodium was stored properly, a jury found Krister guilty. He served 13 months in federal prison and eight more in a halfway house.

So, what did he do that was morally wrong? Nothing. Not that this matters to our lovely federal government. He did not obey their rules to the letter, even when they themselves made it impossible for him to do so. Thus, he must be destroyed.

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The Secret Service raided a man’s home expressly and solely because he was a frequent critic of President Obama.

9:59 pm

The new freedom: The Secret Service raided a man’s home expressly and solely because he was a frequent critic of President Obama.

The man wasn’t violent, had never threatened Obama in any way (something the Secret Service admitted). His only crime was that he expressed his first amendment rights to criticize the president. For that, his house was searched and he was threatened.

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Republican Lindsey Graham said today that he’d be willing to censor our mail if he thought it would help catch terrorists.

2:51 pm

O goody: Republican Lindsey Graham said today that he’d be willing to censor our mail if he thought it would help catch terrorists.

“In World War II, the mentality of the public was that our whole way of life was at risk, we’re all in. We censored the mail. When you wrote a letter overseas, it got censored. When a letter was written back from the battlefield to home, they looked at what was in the letter to make sure they were not tipping off the enemy,” Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters on Capitol Hill. “If I thought censoring the mail was necessary, I would suggest it, but I don’t think it is.”

This guy hasn’t a clue. The example he gives does not apply, as a military officer is under a different set of rules than ordinary citizens. If we do as he suggests, we will lower ourselves to the level of the thugs and dictators and bullies we supposedly oppose.

Then again, I’m not sure we haven’t done this already.

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The whistleblower who leaked the NSA surveillance program to the press has gone public.

12:48 pm

The whistleblower who leaked the NSA surveillance program to the press has gone public and is talking. Key quote:

Q: Does your family know you are planning this?

A: “No. My family does not know what is happening … My primary fear is that they will come after my family, my friends, my partner. Anyone I have a relationship with …

I will have to live with that for the rest of my life. I am not going to be able to communicate with them. They [the authorities] will act aggressively against anyone who has known me. That keeps me up at night.” [emphasis mine]

It tells us how far the United States has fallen if this man fears our government so much he thinks that government will go after his family.

Read the whole interview. It is quite horrifying, especially now that we know there are federal agents willing to use their power to target specific people solely because of their politics.

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The National Security Agency can secretly access user data provided by as many as fifty American companies, ranging from credit rating agencies to internet service providers.

6:15 pm

The National Security Agency can secretly access user data provided by as many as fifty American companies, ranging from credit rating agencies to internet service providers.

The furor this week over this NSA snoop scandal is fascinating to me. The snooping really isn’t news, as it has been known for years that the NSA delves into these kinds of records in its effort to identify terrorist activity.

So, why the sudden furor and outrage? Up until a few weeks ago, most Americans assumed the federal government restricted this kind of snooping to foreign sources and to specifically hunting for terrorists. Now, however, after the IRS scandal, the public realizes that this government, under Obama at least, is quite willing to abuse its power for partisan political reasons. Under Obama, the IRS was used to target innocent Americans, merely because they disagreed with Obama. The public now realizes that it is also likely that this administration will abuse its access to the private information gathered by NSA, and that sends chills up people’s spines.

Thus, the furor. This kind of snooping is suddenly perceived as a real threat to Americans.

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